8 March 2018 - Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, said Thursday that doctors and hospitals should tell patients how much their care would cost before patients received treatment. 

And if they do not do so voluntarily, he said, the government may use its leverage to force them to disclose the information.

Mr. Azar, speaking to a conference of health insurance executives, said that such information would give patients more control over their health care. And that, he said, would advance one of the Trump administration’s top priorities: “the value-based transformation of our entire health care system.”

“You ought to have the right to know what a health care service will cost — and what it will really cost — before you get that service,” Mr. Azar said.

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